


Test of Gold

by White Aster (white_aster)



Series: Test of Gold [5]
Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Threesome, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-15
Updated: 2005-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:52:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>There's a continuity error in this fic, what with the Espers still being in the world.  My bad.  Consider it an AU.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Test of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> There's a continuity error in this fic, what with the Espers still being in the world. My bad. Consider it an AU.

_Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men._ \--- Seneca (c. 3 B.C.–A.D.65)

 

\-----------------

He never found out what gave him away. Perhaps someone intercepted one of the messages he sent, or some mercenary passing through town recognized him. When the Bishop's guards surrounded the inn where he was staying and demanded that he follow them, it didn't really matter.

He could tell from the beginning that they were really amateurs when it came to torture. It made sense, really, from everything he'd learned. The new religious fanaticism had swept through Jidoor not a year ago, and the Church of the New Sun was too young to have trained torturers. What they did have were followers that were still good enough people at heart to cringe at the messy business of another man's agony, even if he was a spy for the godless heathens.

Amateurs, yes, because it started with only beatings, which really were no worse than scrapes he'd gotten in before. What hurt most of all was not being able to strike back. His only hope was to hold onto his cover story, protest his innocence, and hope that he could buy enough doubt that they might begin to think that they had the wrong man....or become lax enough to let him escape. And a merchant from Nikeah would not have been able to hurt them nearly as much as he would have had he fought back. And so, he allowed the beatings and, when they allowed him enough breath, pled his innocence.

For three days this went on, getting progressively more violent as his captors became more frustrated with his answers. Between the interrogations, they left him in a stone cell that collected the spring rains into a small lake in the floor, leaving him the choice of either standing or sitting in three inches of water. He eventually got the knack of sleeping standing up, propped against the wall, but usually woke damp anyway from the seeping walls and chilled, especially in the morning, when he had to force himself to move around until his teeth stopped chattering.

A few times, in fitfully snatched sleep, he dreamt of the desert, of the hot sun and the dry sands, or the way the heat would shimmer over the oases in the summertime.

Once, he dreamt of Sabin and Shadow. He woke from that dream shivering in the cold morning air, the damp catching in his lungs like cobwebs, and had to force down the panic at the thought of dying.

They did not feed him. A bad, very bad sign.

On the fourth day, everything changed.

He had always thought of pain as something to be borne, dealt with, avoided if possible, but altogether something that his body and mind could overcome. After all, no one died from pain. And if the injury was not life-threatening, then what, really, was all the fuss about?

When they started breaking his hands, he revised that opinion. Pain became huge, awesome, wiping his mind nearly clean except for two thoughts: don't tell them anything, and don't give them the satisfaction of hearing you scream. He'd held onto those thoughts through his right hand. When they started on his left, he could only hold onto the first.

He wasn't sure how long it went on after they started, how long he hung suspended in a fog of agony, senseless except for the questions that he ignored and the bright novas of pain from his hands or a smaller, almost negligible flare from a punch or a kick. He barely registered it when the guards hauled him back to his cell and dumped him on the cold stone and the now only inch-deep water. The jarring to his hands was enough to make the pain swallow him, and the world went black.

His dreams were cold and dark and terrible. He dreamt that he was in a deep cavern, being chased by something worse than death, finding that his path was blocked by a deep lake, and knowing that he could not swim. He dreamt that his hands were being broken again, then that they were threatening to take out his eyes. He dreamt, for the first time in years, of being a child in the brothel, of the first time, the pain of being taken again and again while the men held him and laughed....

When he clawed his way back to consciousness, he was sitting on the floor of the cell, his knees drawn up to his chest, his head buried in his arms atop his knees. His hands hung useless, and he was surprised that they seemed to hurt less. Then he realized that it was likely because they were numbing from the cold.

His face felt very hot against his forearms, his breath coming short between fits of coughing. His last clear thought was wondering if they would kill him before he died from whatever the hell he'd caught in this pisshole of a prison.

Dream and reality meshed, until he could not tell one from the other. Either they drug him out for another interrogation session, or he dreamt it, but the pain flared again. He couldn't tell where. His entire body had become a thing made of pain, bound within it, and it was hard to tell one part of it from another. Though he wasn't sure if it was real or not, he still refused to make a sound, his mind filled with Edgar, Helena, Elisa and Sabin and Shadow, holding desperately to the vision of them warm and whole and safe far, far away from here. Eventually, he was dumped back in his cell, and he couldn't find the strength to move.

Time passed, and he found himself wishing that he could just get on with dying already.

When the door opened, he didn't have the strength left to protest. Everything, the cold, the wet chill of his tattered clothes against his burning skin, the slow crawl of light spilling inwards from under the door, all seemed to be happening very far away from him. Nevertheless, he noticed with detached interest that only one slight figure slipped through the door, then closed it behind him, instead of two who would grab him and drag him out. Between the dimness and his beating-swollen eyes, he could tell nothing about this strange figure except that it was blacker than his surroundings.

It laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Dane."

_How do you know my name?_ He was too busy flinching away from the gentle touch that was painfully close to the crack in his collarbone to reply, even if he'd wanted to.

The hand pulled back, then returned to his forehead, and the figure appeared to be looking him over. It swore bitterly, softly, and then the hands returned, on his chest and his forehead. It murmured under its breath, and warmth spread from its hands, warmth that soaked into him like good whiskey. The figure murmured again, then again, and his body bowed helplessly, his back arching under the painless but bone-popping shock of skin closing, bone mending.

_Death is the Black Wind, who will heal all our hurts and bind all our wounds...._

"Come on, Dane. You need to walk. I can't carry you. We need to go," the figure murmured, hauling him to his feet.

_...and lead us to Paradise beyond the stars...._

"This is Death", he thought, "the Black Wind. Thank all the gods, I'm dying"

His legs at first refused to hold him, but he bullied them, telling them that they could damned well take him to the afterlife. Leaning heavily on Death, he walked.

They left the cell, turning down twisting hallways. They passed, several times, dead men in Church colors, usually with small throwing daggers neatly through their eyes.

He soon become light-headed with the activity, and his feet began to stumble as it became harder to remember how far down the ground was. The Black Wind stopped, murmured again, and the warmth spread through him, weaker this time, and though he could feel it unknotting his muscles, he could tell that it did little else. "Not much farther," Death said, and that was good enough. The sight of the ground moving beneath him made his stomach clench, and he closed his eyes, trusting in his guide.

They continued on, finally climbing stairs, and his boots rang not on stone but on what felt like carpet. Then they were out, and the air was still cold but fresh, smelling of trees and new-growing flowers and wet earth. His feet sank into soft dirt, and slogged through it for some time, one foot in front of the other, until he wondered how much farther away the afterlife could be.

Then there were other voices, and gentle hands lifting him and setting him down again on something more solid than earth but dammit cold again. The hum of machinery surrounded him, and footsteps rang close to him. He thought he heard someone calling his name again, but couldn't be sure.

The last things he remembered were the growing roar of machinery coupled with the inexplicable sensation of rising, and the blessed warmth as a body pulled his own close and wrapped its arms around him.

***

"Shadow."

Sabin knelt beside them, his stomach twisting. Dane's skin was an unhealthy yellow color, what "pale" might look like on someone with his coloring, and stretched tighter over his bones than Sabin remembered. He was trembling, the remains of his clothes soaked through and spotted with blood. There was more blood dried on his face, and his hands were covered with it. Sabin shivered at the thought of what they might have looked like before Shadow got to him. That prompted the thought of what else had been broken, and he clenched his hands, fighting down the slow tide of rage. "Shadow."

Shadow had, as soon as the airship took off, pulled Dane into his lap and cradled him there, sitting against the bulkhead. Dressed once again in his assassin's black and veil, he looked like a particularly tender part of the night that had slipped inside the airship.

But he still hadn't responded, his head bent over Dane's unconscious face. Sabin knew it was just unconsciousness because he could hear, much too clearly, Dane's breathing struggle through his chest. He'd never understood why cure magic could heal cuts, broken bones--hell, _disemboweling_\--but not sickness. Terra had tried to explain it to him once, about how sickness is not really of the body, but something invading the body, but he hadn't really caught it all....

Slowly, Sabin reached out a hand and grasped his lover's shoulder, whispering his name again.

This time Shadow looked up, and above the veil his eyes burned with a fire Sabin had never seen before but understood immediately. "I know." He clenched his fist again. "I know. But right now that's not going to help him." He forced his fist to open and his voice to stay low. "It'll be another hour 'til we get back to Figaro. Then the healers will fix everything the cures can't, but right now...we need to get him out of those clothes and warm. All right?"

Shadow closed his eyes, and Sabin watched him struggle for control. When he opened them, he nodded, and allowed Sabin to take Dane from his arms. The Prince of Figaro hefted Dane's weight easily, frowning when he seemed lighter than he remembered. The memory of sweeping a laughing Dane off his feet and tossing him into bed flashed behind his eyes, and he forced himself not to flinch as he headed for the living quarters, Shadow close behind.

_It'll be all right. It will. He's safe now. Safe. Everything will be all right._

_It **will**._

***  
Once you've opened your heart to one person, I've learned, it's so very easy for others to creep in...and to finally see that there were others there already.

I never would have thought it seven years ago, five even. Love was not a word I ever used. It was a word hoarded away under lock and key, wrapped in her scent and her smile. Either that, or it was a pale, empty thing in other peoples' mouths, bereft of meaning. And though he and I spent two years as partners, as lovers, we didn't speak of love. Flirting dangerously with capture and death every day, life itself was fleeting, a thing of the moment, and when we each looked at each other, we knew that the next night could very well see the other dead.

What use is love in a life like that?

Instead we could speak to each other of need, and lust, and, eventually, trust, and for me it was more than enough.

And if it was not enough for him, I never knew, never guessed. Perhaps it was easy for him to hide it under the all-too-real desire, the all-too-evident casual sensuality that he wore like a second skin. And he wore it well. When he reappeared in Figaro's guard those years later, (after I extorted, bribed, and threatened information out of every mercenary, thief, and assassin I could lay my hands on to make sure he wasn't there on a hit or a snatch), I didn't truly expect him to stay. The pay of a guardsman, even the half-bodyguard, half-spy that Edgar promoted him to, though steady and decent, was nothing compared to what he was capable of bringing in for a night's work. The eventual place in mine and Sabin's bed was warmly welcomed, but he had never been one to stay in one place simply for his lovers' sakes. Even more than that, Dane had always had a wanderlust, a restlessness that drove him, as if he were always one step ahead of something or someone. I expected him to stay for six months, a year at most, then to move on. And as a year turned into two, into three, into five, I began to wonder.

So I watched. I watched him banter with the guards and flirt with Helena over chess and, quietly, when Edgar asked, teach her every self-defense technique and dirty street-fighter's trick he'd taught me and a few he hadn't. I watched him work the balls like a born courtier, laughing and smiling politely, flattering men and women alike so well that hardly any noticed how much information he charmed out of them. I watched him get Edgar gloriously drunk, usually when he needed it most. I watched him, curled around me or curled in Sabin's arms.

I watched him, and it didn't take long to realize that he was happy.

And that thought led to another: that perhaps the restlessness had not been a running away, but a running towards. A search for something that he had found in the middle of this godsforsaken desert. Perhaps it was what I had found: a home.

But it was not until that cell in Jidoor that I realized how wide my heart had become. It wasn't the evidence of the beatings, or the fever, or even the idea of torture in general I had been prepared for that. It was the sight of his hands, those quick, clever hands that I'd watched pick locks and pockets, seen defend my life and the lives of those I cared about, the hands that had taught me the right way to throw a knife and that had ghosted, fine and knowing, over my shivering skin in the dark on countless nights.... It was the sight of those hands, his hands, limp and broken, every bone crushed, that made me realize what I would do for him.

I wanted to kill them. The guards, the Bishop, every Jidooran I could find who had allowed this to happen. I wanted to make the streets run with blood, to kill and kill again with my bare hands.

Even in my darkest days, the rest of the world drew--at most--apathy from me, a casual disinterest in and disregard for others' lives. Hate is not something I have felt often. When it has come to me, it has been in defense of those I love, which let me know and made me admit once and for all where Dane stood.

I did none of the recklessly homicidal things that came to mind, though. Instead, I poured cure magic into him again and again, until his skin almost glowed with it and his body, his hands, were as whole as I could make them.

***

Edgar was not one to pray. He preferred concrete actions, something he could physically do, to having to stand by and beg for aid from gods he wasn't sure existed.

But when the Falcon touched down and he found himself at the front of the small army of guards and physicians rushing towards the airship, he found himself praying. _Please, any gods that are listening, please let them be all right._

After the Falcon had taken off, he'd had a terrifying vision of something going terribly wrong, the airship being captured, of losing Sabin and Shadow and Setzer as well as Dane. The fact that he probably would have led an army to Jidoor to get them back disturbed the king in him on several levels. Seeing Sabin's familiar bulk and Shadow's dark form not far behind lifted a weight from his heart so quickly that he nearly felt dizzy. His relief was short-lived, however, when he realized that the bundle in Sabin's arms was Dane.

_No. Oh, no no no...._

Though he wanted nothing more than to be the first there, he held back to allow the physicians the room they needed. There was a short babble of conversation with Sabin, a quick examination of the form cradled in his great arms, and then they were rushing Sabin and his burden past Edgar and into the Castle. He snagged the arm of the hindmost physician. "How is he?"

The woman blinked at him. "He has a high fever, Your Highness, and possibly pneumonia and is half-starved. Lord Shadow took care of his other injuries."

Edgar swallowed, feeling sick to his stomach, but the King in him asked calmly, "What other injuries?"

The physician sighed. "I don't know, Your Highness. He didn't elaborate." She looked hard at him for the first time, then her face softened. "His fever is high, Your Highness, but nothing that an ice bath and some willowbark tea and lots of rest shouldn't cure. We've got herbs that will clear up his chest. He'll be fine."

"And his mind?" The words sounded very far away to Edgar's ears.

The physician sighed again and looked over to the gates, where Sabin and the rest were disappearing into the Castle. "If he's been tortured...it will depend. On what they did. On if he broke. On his own strength. It's different for everyone. I can't say."

"Thank you."

The physician nodded, bowed, and hurried after her compatriots, leaving Edgar standing in the moonlight on the sands.

A light hand slipped into his. "He will be all right." Helena laid her cheek on his shoulder, embracing him from behind.

_On what they did._

"Of course he will be." The words were flat, though, and he realized that he wasn't sure if he believed them.

_On if he broke._

And he found himself clinging to her hand, hugging her arms around his chest, long after he should have gone inside.

***

He forced himself to wait two hours. Dane's quarters, which had seen drunken carousing and cut-throat card games and probably other recreational activities that Edgar would rather not know about, were unnaturally silent. The gaggle of physicians had been cut to only four, including Isamus, the Royal Physician, and his apprentice. As Edgar entered, Sabin was laying a shower-damp and still unconscious Dane on the bed. Sabin looked up as his twin entered, his smile of welcome a ghost of its normal self. He carefully pulled the covers up around Dane and slid around to prop him up against his own bulk as Isamus's apprentice approached with a cup.

Isamus looked up, one white eyebrow quirked as he laid a wizened wrist on Dane's forehead. "Your Highness. His fever's coming down. Between the willow we gave him and the cold water, it's kicked. It was probably going down by itself before we even did a thing. He's just asleep now. The congestion should be no problem as long as it doesn't get worse, and we've given him some herbs that should do the trick. The only thing we need do now is try and get some food into him--" he gestured to his apprentice, who, with Sabin's help, was slowly trickling something that smelled like beef broth into Dane's mouth, then stroking his throat to get his unconscious body to swallow--"and let him rest." The old physician straightened and stretched his back with a grunt. "He'll be fine. Thanks to you." He nodded at someone over Edgar's shoulder, and Edgar turned, startled to see Shadow standing not five feet behind him. _Damn. Has he been there the whole time?_

He was still dressed in black, though he had taken off the headdress and veil. His eyes flicked to Edgar as he turned, then returned to Dane's form on the bed. His eyes and face were unreadable.

"Magic's a damned nice thing," Isamus continued. "Probably saved him from getting killed by his injuries getting to the airship."

The conversation went on, but Edgar found himself still watching Shadow for some reason he couldn't identify. The ninja didn't respond to any of the physicians' words, simply watched the bed. Slowly, his gaze shifted to meet Edgar's, and Edgar looked away, seeing anger there, cold and sharp, a blade of ice laid on his spine.

When he turned back to the bed, Isamus and his apprentice had already left without him noticing. One of the other physicians was trying to convince Sabin to leave. "...should really rest yourself, Your Highness. We can handle things from here." The man turned to Shadow. "You also, my lord. No sense in wearing yourself out--"

Sabin interrupted quietly, not looking up. "One of us stays with him. Until he wakes."

The physician frowned, "Your Highness, please see reason. Both of you have had a long night, and one of us can stay up with him should he wake--"

Shadow spoke for the first time, his voice just as quiet as Sabin's. "He has been imprisoned, starved, and tortured for the past week. If you were him and woke in a room full of strangers, what would you do?" Silently, he walked around the bed and pulled back the pillow from the head to reveal the hilt of a small hidden dagger protruding from a sheath tucked between the mattress and the headboard. Shadow pulled, and a four-inch stiletto slid out with barely a whisper. He held it before the physician's eyes. "He would gut you in a second. He is a trained assassin. Or have you forgotten?"

The man paled.

Shadow slid the blade back in its sheath without looking and replaced the pillow. "One of us stays with him," and his tone was chill and final.

"I'll stay first," Sabin said, laying Dane back against the pillows. "You've had a worse time of it tonight than me."

"I can't--"

Sabin looked up at him, and from his angle Edgar couldn't see the expression on his twin's face, but it stopped Shadow's protest. Sabin whispered something quietly, and Shadow's eyes melted just a bit. He murmured something back, Sabin nodded, and Shadow rounded the bed and left, quiet as his namesake, and not sparing Edgar so much as a glance.

When he was gone, Edgar finally approached the bed. Wordlessly, he laid his hands on Sabin's shoulders as they both looked down at Dane's still form, listening to the still-too-loud breathing. "He's angry with me."

Sabin shook his head, looking up and meeting his twin's eyes, knowing, as he always did, what Edgar meant. "He's angry at them, the bastards that did this. At himself."

"Why himself?"

"Because he didn't get there sooner. Because he waited for nightfall. Because...." He gestured vaguely with one hand.

Because this is Dane. "It's not his fault."

"Not yours either." Sabin's eyes turned up at him. "You couldn't have known."

_But I sent him. He told me the Church's power was becoming dangerous. If I'd listened harder, if I'd guessed what they were capable of...._ A voice in the back of his head, that sounded much like his father's, said, _You'd have sent him anyway. Because you are King._

Yes, he thought. And that is why I can't blame Shadow.

"He's still angry at me, though."

Sabin nodded, sadly. "Yes." He laid his cheek against the back of Edgar's hand for a moment, sharing reassurance through touch, like they had done when they were children and one of them had gotten in trouble for breaking something or trampling through Grandmother's flowers. Edgar looked down at the quiet shadow of the man he'd sent to Jidoor and wished that things could be so simple again.

***

Waking was a slow, rather confusing process. The first thing that registered was the strange weakness and the gnawing in his gut.

_Sweet gods, what was I drinking?_

The second thing was the soft, warm bed.

_And who put me to bed?_

He opened his eyes a crack, expecting the hammer-between-the-eyes hit of a hangover headache. Curiously, it didn't come. Also curiously, though not at all unwelcome, the first thing he saw was Shadow watching him from a chair beside his bed.

Dane smiled sleepily at him and murmured, "Morning."

"Morning." Shadow's voice was quiet, and his eyes were strangely wary. "Hungry?"

"Mmm. Starving." _Odd. I usually can't even look at food until I've been up an hour._

Shadow stood and walked over to a covered tray on the table by the door.

_Breakfast in bed? Am I missing something?_

The smell from the tray, though, set his stomach practically wailing, and his vision wavered as he pushed himself up to sit against the headboard. _Why am I so weak? Why am I so hungry?_

He raised a hand to steady his swimming head, then stared at it, wondering why it looked...so...odd....

_Sweet...burning...gods...._

***

I turned back to see him staring at his hand, at first in puzzlement, then in shock, then in something akin to sick horror.

He didn't remember.

His eyes turned up to meet mine, wide, horrified.

_And now he does. Shit._

I dropped the tray unceremoniously back on the table. Three quick strides brought me to the bed just as his hand began to shake. Tentatively, I reached out to draw it into mine. He flinched at the touch, then roughly twined his fingers in mine, gripping tightly. Hesitantly, he flexed his other hand, watching it as if he expected it to turn into a viper.

Not looking up, he whispered, "It wasn't a dream, was it?"

Gently, I cupped his chin with my free hand, forcing him to look up from the memory of his mutilated hands. Softly, "No."

Amber eyes blinked dazedly at me. "That was you, wasn't it? That came to get me?

"Yes."

His head dropped forward until his forehead rested on my shoulder. I almost didn't hear his next words. "I thought I was dyin'. I thought ya were Death."

There was absolutely nothing to say to that. So I held him, while he shook against me, my one hand gripped in his, the other stroking again and again through his hair, not sure if I was trying to comfort him or me.

And swearing to myself that someone was going to pay dearly for this.

***

Edgar went to see him a few days later. He found Dane's rooms empty and the guard on duty at the nearest guard station informed him that Dane and Shadow had left early that morning, heading deeper into the residential wing. Probably to Sabin's room, Edgar thought, thanking the man.

All three of them had their own rooms, and sometimes they even slept in them. However, often they would end up in Sabin's rooms when they all slept together, and Edgar could see the logic in taking Dane there if he needed someplace safe and familiar to rest in. Someplace where he could be near both his lovers.

Edgar shook his head, listening to his own thoughts as he headed back towards the royal wing. A Prince of Figaro sleeping with two ex-mercenaries. And men, to boot.

_Grandfather is probably rolling in his grave._

The doors to Sabin's rooms were open, spilling sunlight and a rather summer-like breeze into the hallway.

Dane was perched on the sill above the windowseat, his back against the frame, smoking. One leg was bent at the knee, boot against the windowsill, the other resting lightly on the seat's cushion as he looked out the open window at the courtyard below, his face turned at such an angle that Edgar couldn't see his expression. An arm rested on one knee, hand dangling, cigarette burning lazily between two fingers.

Edgar hesitated in the doorway, wondering exactly what it was he was doing here. He'd gone looking for Dane with a vague desire to see how he was, but now that he had found him....

What the hell do I want? To apologize? "I'm sorry I sent you to get captured and tortured and almost die"? Not very kinglike.

He closed his eyes, trying to calm his thoughts. _Even if it is true.  
_  
"Tryin' to sneak up on me, boss?"

The slight, crooked grin as he turned to look at him was the same as it'd been six months ago. The tight knot in Edgar's chest loosened just a bit. "I wasn't."

A chuckle, another drag on the cigarette. "Good, 'cause you were doin' a shitty job of it."

The wind shifted, stirring the heavy curtains and stray wisps of long red hair, bringing Edgar a waft of clove-scented smoke. He moved into the room, murmuring, "I thought you quit."

Dane snorted. "Six months without the damned things only made me realize how much I liked 'em." He stabbed the cigarette at Edgar for emphasis. "Never again am I goin' on an undercover mission where I can't smoke. You can stuff it."

He picked up the cigarette tin from the windowseat and offered it to Edgar. Edgar sighed and took one, accepting the light a moment later. The first drag made him cough a bit, but the second went down smooth, reminding him forcibly of Nikeah and long nights of carousing interspersed with the sharp fear of being discovered. "Filthy habit," he muttered, glaring at the cigarette fondly. "Have to admit, though--" He stopped in alarm as Dane's breath hissed through his teeth. "--what?"

Dane didn't answer, dropping the burning smoke into the saucer he'd been using as an ashtray and then flexing his clenching hands slowly, his face tight with pain. After a moment, he shook his head and slanted a look over at Edgar, "Guess magic can't fix everythin', eh?"

Edgar just looked at him for a moment, part of him quietly horrified at the...blank...look in his friend's eyes. His voice, when he found it, was quiet and thick with emotions so tangled he couldn't even begin to decipher them. "Cures...will do that sometimes. They heal it, but the body will, every now and then still be convinced it's injured. Amputees feel something similar, I've heard...feeling heat or tingling in a limb that's not really there...." Dane was still watching him, taking in the information, holding his eyes, and Edgar looked away, out the window.

"How long does it last?" Dane's voice was calm, matter-of-fact.

Something deep in Edgar wanted to scream, remembering how Dane's hands had been covered in blood when they'd brought him back, as if they'd been torn to pieces, broken. _How can you talk about it like this?_ Instead, he shrugged slightly, refusing to meet those too-sharp eyes. "A few days. It's not permanent." _Why don't you blame me?_

"Edgar."

"Hmm?" His eyes followed the movements in the courtyard, as the guards drilled.

"Look at me, will you?"

_I don't want to._ But that sounded childish even to his own ears, so Edgar looked, and Dane's amber eyes held that half-faraway look that usually preceded him knowing way too much about what Edgar was feeling. The king started to look away, and Dane's hand came up to cup his chin, keeping him from moving. "Don't. Don't beat yourself up about this, Edgar. I knew what I was doin'. I knew what I was signin' up for. This wasn't your fault."

Dane's hand felt very warm against his skin, smelling, as Dane always did, of clove and tobacco and leather. Edgar wondered why he found it as comforting as he did, almost as comforting as the words that accompanied it. He knew that they were true, had repeated them to himself ever since they'd received word that the Church had taken Dane, but on his friend's lips, they finally seemed to ring true. And yet.... "Of course it was my fault," he replied steadily. "I sent you." More truth, though not as stinging as it had been a few minutes ago.

The hand tightened. "And I chose to go. You don't run this place like the Empire, Edgar. I could've said no. I could've said no years ago, stayed out of the politics--" A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth--"stayed in the guard where the most I had to worry about was keepin' my boots shined."

"You would have been bored out of your mind." Edgar suppressed a shiver at the thought of what kind of trouble a bored Dane in his guard could have caused.

A finger tapped against the underside of his chin. "Never said I wouldn't. Not the point. I'm talkin' about choices, here, Edgar. I do this because I...want to."

That slight hesitation didn't go unnoticed. Edgar would have given half the Figaro treasury to know what he had been going to say first. Maybe three-fourths. But he knew when to let something go.

Dane had dropped his hand and turned back to the window, looking out over the courtyard again. Edgar could hear one of the guard captains calling out the drills, the barked commands followed by the muted thump of twenty feet scraping obediently across the stones. The breeze floated in again, and Dane pulled his coat closer around his shoulders.

"Aren't you hot with that on?" Edgar asked. The day was perhaps not as hot as summer tended to get in Figaro--which was, usually, just short of hot enough to blister paint--but the sun was warm enough to make heavy leather uncomfortable.

Dane shook his head, not looking up or back.

"You're not still feeling feverish, are you?" Edgar took a step forward. Whether or not he actually intended to put a hand to Dane's forehead was rendered moot when Dane turned, frowning a bit at the oncoming hand and freezing it where it was.

"I'm not still sick, Edgar. Ifrit's balls, you're just as bad as the damned doctors."

Edgar blinked, taken aback. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Dane annoyed, and certainly not over such a small thing.

Evidently Dane heard it, too, and he grimaced. "Sorry. I'm fine, it's just...." His eyes flickered to Edgar's, uncertain. Spoken as they were out the window again, Edgar almost didn't catch his next words. "That damned cell was just cold as hell, all right?"

The words were soft, laden with their own painful burden. They weren't words for the bright sunlight of a Figaro spring morning. It hurt to hear them, perhaps almost as much as it hurt to say them. Not because he felt guilty, Edgar thought, but just because no one wants to see their friends in pain.

_I know. I know what it's like when your worst memories follow you into the light of day._ He laid a hand on Dane's arm, and was immensely relieved when it was greeted with a wan smile rather than being shrugged off. Heartened, he gave his shoulder a squeeze. "C'mon."

Dane turned. "Eh?"

"Come on. I want to give you something."

Dane looked at him for a second, eyebrows raised, before standing and following as Edgar turned and walked towards the door.

He got three steps before Dane said, "Mmmm hmmm. And that's a fine present, too."

Edgar turned just in time to see the redhead's eyes moving up from where his ass had just been. He rolled his eyes. "You are feeling better."

The answering grin was slight, but the nod was still mock-innocent as they walked out of the room. "Told you so."

"I believe you. Now do you suppose we could walk down the hall without you looking at me like a bitch in heat?"

He could hear the smile in his voice. "Not when you bring up _that_ image...."__

_And for the first time in over a week, Edgar Figaro smiled._

_***_

_He led the way down to the inner halls, where the castle curled around the rooms like a sleeping dragon. Those rooms, Dane knew, were the most protected, the most well-defended. They held the power generators, the library, the royal quarters, the warroom...._

_And the treasury, which was where they were headed. It wasn't that Dane hadn't ever been, just that he couldn't figure out why in hell Edgar would be bringing him there. He was even more puzzled when Edgar asked him to wait in one of the antechambers while he continued on. It wasn't because Edgar didn't trust him. He'd sent Dane down here himself several times. When Dane looked a question at the king, Edgar said quietly, "When you see what it is, you'll understand why I don't want you to know exactly where it came from."_

_Dane shrugged and sat down to wait._

_Five minutes later, Edgar reappeared and motioned for him to follow. Sighing, getting a bit tired of the cloak and dagger routine, Dane followed. His patience had run out by the time they stopped in one of the abandoned training courtyards. "Alright Edgar, what's this about?"_

_In answer, Edgar pulled something out from under his cloak. Something that shimmered, iridescent green and blue and purple framing a pulsing heart of red in the sunlight, the brightness spilling over his fingers like a liquid rainbow. Dane stepped closer, fingers twitching but not moving to take the offered object._

_He spoke slowly, eyes never leaving the small crystal sun in Edgar's hand, "That's...."_

_"Magicite, yes." Edgar's voice was careful. "This is an Esper. This is Ifrit."_

_Magicite. Esper._

__Sweet burning gods. Magic. He's offering me magic. Ifrit. He's.... __

And he understood why Edgar hadn't wanted him to know where the Esper was being kept. Just the knowledge that the Espers were in Figaro Castle was worth more than Dane had ever made in his life.

His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he tore his eyes away from the magicite and looked up at Edgar's face.

_-tension-nervousness-fear-_

Yeah. No shit.

"You...you want me to have this?"

Edgar nodded, tightly.

"Why?"

Edgar's lips thinned, something hard and determined shining in his eyes. "Because if you'd had him with you, if he'd taught you what he taught me, you could have gotten the hell out of there any time you wanted."

_-fear-concern-affection-protectiveness-_

The magicite flashed in front of his eyes as Edgar waved it between them, breaking eye contact. Dane blinked, losing the connection. _He did that on purpose. _

Edgar's mouth quirked. "Knock it off and take the damned thing."

Dane reached out, hesitantly. The thing looked like it would burn if he touched it. "How...how does it work?"

Maybe Edgar saw some of the doubt on his face. He dropped his hand and its contents to his side, his voice gentle. "You don't have to, Dane. If you two don't get on or you don't like it, it can be undone any time. It's not permanent. I just...thought it would be a good idea."

One eyebrow arched, Dane thought about that for a second then wiggled his outstretched fingers in an impatient gesture. "Fine. You know me. I'll try anything once--"

"And maybe twice for good measure, I know," Edgar finished for him, smiling. He held up the magicite. "Just...be open to him, invite him in. He knows how to do this."

Edgar upended his hand over Dane's and the magicite fell into his palm, warmer than skin, smooth like glass, and lighter than he would have expected. The orb flashed in his hand, as if it knew he was there, and deep in it he saw that sullen glimmer of deepest red. Invite him in. Dane remembered the stories from his childhood, of the old gods that had mingled their blood with the tribes': the gentle Kirin, the Black Wind, the trickster Ghost Wolf and the Elementals.... Ifrit, who brought the summer sun and the siroccos and the heat of the fire in the cold night....

"It'll feel a bit odd at first--" and that was all he heard of Edgar's warning before the magicite in his hand flowed like water into his skin and he suddenly wasn't the only one inside his head--

_\--roaring fire and hot wind and the smell of sulfur and melting rock all wrapped around a towering figure, horned and majestic and watching him with a sort of idle curiosity, reaching out and before he could even think to attempt to get away, he felt it run through him in a sweep of flame, hotter than anything he'd ever felt, searing and bright like the heart of the sun, banishing even the memory of chill wet darkness until his muscles spasmed with the certainty that they'd never be cold again, and a sort of satisfied rumble filled his ears, surprised recognition of the tiniest spark left behind in those mortals so very very long ago, and then a flicker through his thoughts, his memories, and this time he had enough wits to try to fight, no, no, but swift pride and shame were too little too late to stop the thorough inspection of action and memory, and if he remembered how he would have sobbed, waiting for the fire to leave in disgust, stealing back the warmth he wanted more than breathing, but instead there was an indignant growl at the memories of cold wet imprisonment and approval at the memories of survival, again and again through any odds and any pain, and finally a grunt of satisfaction and a shifting slide across, through, IN--_

\--and there were hands on his shoulders, steadying him, and very concerned-looking blue eyes. "Dane? Are you all right?"

He tried to reply, croaked rather unflatteringly, and tried again. "Yeh. I'm okay. Just...a bit much, s'all."

Edgar's smile was a little relieved. "He must have liked you. He knocked Celes on her ass the first time she tried to take him in."

_I bet he did._ Dane had only met Celes once, but her chill personality and the rumors of what she'd done to Locke were more than enough to breed instant dislike. "That just shows he's got good taste."

Edgar gave a surprised snort that bubbled into laughter, more of relief than anything, and Dane joined him, shrugging out of his coat to bask in the warm sunlight.

~End


End file.
